page_title: Classical Mechanics (Goldstein book)
section_title: Second edition
hierarchical_section_title: Classical Mechanics (Goldstein book) / Reception / Second edition
caption_attribution_description: English: Bounded but non-closed orbit.
context_page_description: Classical Mechanics is a textbook about that subject written by Herbert Goldstein, a professor at Columbia University. Intended for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students, it has been one of the standard references in its subject around the world since its first publication in 1951.
context_section_description: Concerning the second printing of the first edition, Vic Twersky of the Mathematical Research Group at New York University considered the book to be of pedagogical merit because it explains things in a clear and simple manner, and its humor is not forced. Published in the 1950s, this book replaced the outdated and fragmented treatises and supplements typically assigned to beginning graduate students as a modern text on classical mechanics with exercises and examples demonstrating the link between this and other branches of physics, including acoustics, electrodynamics, thermodynamics, geometric optics, and quantum mechanics. It also has a chapter on the mechanics of fields and continua. At the end of each chapter, there is a list of references with the author's candid reviews of each. Twersky said that Goldstein's Classical Mechanics is more suitable for physicists compared to the much older treatise Analytical Dynamics by E.T. Whittaker, which he deemed more appropriate for mathematicians.
  E. W. Banhagel, an instructor from Detroit, Michigan, observed that despite requiring no more than multivariable and vector calculus, the first edition of Classical Mechanics successfully introduces some sophisticated new ideas in physics to students. Mathematical tools are introduced as needed. He believed that the annotated references at the end of each chapter are of great value.
caption: Front cover of the second edition.
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